Last week to help ~ Please support KAM\’s Crowdfunding Campaign!

We are in the final stretch for this campaign and very close!

MaretingPros.com has a good blog post on crowdfunding you may find interesting too. Read the article here Marketingpros.com about how Crowdfunding is the \”Must have\” marketing tool for brands and business\’s today.  It motivated me to take another look at Crowdfunding for our kart track as we are always in need of funding options from buying trophies every week to just paying the normal operating bills.  This leaves little room for much else, and for the past 8 years or so everything that we had was funneled back into the race program.  If it weren\’t for our Sponsors KAM would have closed down years ago just like countless other tracks over the years.  Funding track improvements is an even bigger struggle for us.  So when you skip a mortgage payment to buy year-end award, like we did last year you are going to jump at an opportunity and do some hot and heavy fundraising when someone pledges half the cost of major piece of equipment for the track. 

The deal is: we have a sponsor (Bill with the Oil Medics) who has pledged $2,000 to purchase a scoring system for the track if we can raise the other $2,000 to match it.  I hate asking for money! Believe me. Back in the day, we were the ones handing out money to racers and tracks.  We (KAM Karting Supply) were Title, class, driver – you name it – sponsors for over 13 years.  But it felt good to give to the racing community that we loved so much.  As many know, this is not a wealth building business by any streach and in fact Mike has taken on a full time job outside the shop to help pay the bills.  We give everything back to the track – the race program.  But there is a deadline and we are in the last week to donate.  I have had some cash donations and direct paypal donations as well so if that is the route you want to take to make yours, please let me know.  You can go to Paypal and click \”Send Money\” and use our paypal email address which is kart61@airmail.net.   Any amount is greatly appreciated!!

Racing has been such a huge part of my life and that of my family – the memories and friends that are created from racing are priceless.   I know what it’s like to have children dream of being race car drivers and the complete thrill and excitement of watching and helping them do everything to go for it.  Now it’s my dream to help you and your child work for that same goal and make as many beautiful memories along the way as possible. Racing is no longer something my kids used to do – it’s my life. It’s my home. It’s my KAM Families.  It\’s the kids who count on us.

Back to the article I first mentioned that the piece explained Honda is using Crowdfunding to help save the American Drive In. Go to the link and watch the promo video – it’s really good.   It made me realize that we are not the only crazy people in America holding onto a business because of our love for it and passion for our customers. Our own CPA thinks we are crazy and is totally convinced that we are long overdue for an audit because we have not shown a profit in …. well let’s just say a long time.

Do I want you to feel sorry for me? NO! I don’t want to guilt anyone into anything either. I just want to be transparent and educate those who are interested.

I think I felt compelled to write post for another reason too. Your kart racing is a very expensive investment, I know we had three daughters race for years too. But I think that some people have the misguided impression that we are rolling in the money.  First of all if that were true Mike would not be working an outside job 4 days a week. But I assure you that the karting industry is a very low profit margin business these days. We make very little on a new kart sale, and littler still with the manufacturer selling direct to our customer base.  Basically we sell the karts to stay in business selling the parts that go with them, shop services and so that we have drivers on race day at our track.. I guess the Kart suppliers feeling the crunch too – used to be a dealer had an exclusive territory and it was protected by the distributor.

I wish NASCAR level businesses & executives who call themselves racers and race fans would take a lesson from Honda and do something to help support small dirt tracks across America with needed funding to stay open and even thrive. There really could be a driver shortage if tracks keep closing at this alarming rate. I have spent the past 4 days or so reaching out to business for donation and sponsorships for John Makula Memorial and the 2015 Season (race “supporters”) and I have probably received 20 emails between yesterday and today saying no.

Drive In Theaters may not be the only American treasure vanishing. Grassroots dirt tracks are in the same jeopardy.

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